AI in creative work: how an art collective builds shows with Claude

If you think AI is only for spreadsheets and software, here's a corrective: Squidsoup, a collective of artists and designers who build immersive experiences from sound, light and space, use Claude in their creative process — and Anthropic's Claude channel filmed them preparing one of their largest projects yet: a live performance with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at London's Southbank Centre.

Thousands of points of light, a full orchestra playing The Lark Ascending, and somewhere in the toolchain, an AI helping the artists get there. Not replacing the art — carrying some of the weight of making it.

What creatives actually use AI for

The pattern with working artists is remarkably consistent, and it's not "generate the art for me". It's everything around the art:

• The technical grunt work — code that drives lights and sound, the plumbing between systems, the boring-but-essential layer under every installation.
• Iteration speed — trying "what if it pulsed slower / bluer / in waves" in minutes instead of days, so more ideas get auditioned before the deadline.
• The logistics — the documents, schedules and checklists that surround any production involving an orchestra and a public venue.

The taste — what's beautiful, what the audience should feel — stays entirely human. The machine just shortens the distance between imagining something and standing inside it.

Why this matters to "non-creative" businesses (which don't exist)

If you run events, catering, weddings or hospitality, you're in a creative business — you sell experiences and you're judged on feel. The Squidsoup lesson is that automation and craft aren't enemies: the businesses that automate the plumbing get more time for the part customers actually remember.

Every hour your team doesn't spend retyping enquiry details or chasing unanswered quotes is an hour that goes into the food, the room, the show. That's the trade. The craft is yours; the plumbing is ours.

Based on "How Squidsoup makes art installations with Claude" from Anthropic's official Claude YouTube channel.